Printing to printer

[wxgeek99]

I have written in C language quite a bit but I'm new to C++/Visual C++.
Trying to write to the default printer from a Windows 10 box. I'm told that the following code segment will do that. It is being compiled as a C++ console app in Visual Studio 2015.

Here is the code:

******************************************************************************
// ConsoleApplication5.cpp : Defines the entry point for the console application.
//

#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include "stdafx.h"

using namespace std;

int main()
{
ofstream printer("LPT1");
if (!printer)
{
return 1;
}

printer << "Test Test Test\n";
printer << "\f";
printer.close();
return 0;
}

*******************************************************************************

When VS2015 builds it...it gives up several errors. The first of which is
C2065: ofstream undeclared identifier. I thought ofstream was defined in ifstream or fstream.

Can someone provide some guidance here. Thanks!

Jim

[jlb]

The code you provided compiles fine on my machine. Perhaps the code you provided isn't the code you actually tried to compile?

[wxgeek99]

OK...I placed the #include "stdafx.h" first in the include list and it now compiles fine.
Apparently this is a Microsoft specific rule. The problem now is that it runs in a window but NOTHING happens at the printer. I checked the print que and it is empty.

Jim

[jlb]

Well printing to "LPT1" is really a DOS hangover that is probably not going to work. First if your printer is not connected to a parallel port there is no way printing to "LPT1" will work, because "LPT1" is the first parallel port. Second if you have a modern Windows printer, you can't print directly to the printer, you need to go through a driver. You'll need to investigate the Windows printing system documentation and use Windows API calls to properly access the printer.

[Ganado]

Sorry but your program in no way interacts with an actual, physical printer or printer driver.
You have only made an ofstream object, which creates a file called "LPT1", and puts some text into it.
(Edit: Sorry, I guess LPT1 is a special, see jlb's answer. Still probably won't work though)

To actually work with a printer, you're gonna probably need platform-specific code. Probably a bit complicated.
Try searching google and MSDN, I'm not an expert in that stuff.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ff686805(v=vs.85).aspx

Here's for example, some code that apparently prints the screen to a printer https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/186736

[wxgeek99]

Well...I guess the short answer is "you can't get there from here". So I will start cramming my brain with the wonderful world of Win API programming. (Wonderful!)

Jim